IMO the most important part of being a REAL music fan is knowing how to label a band with the proper genre. For example, there is literally nothing that makes me more angry than some entry-leveller who calls a band pop punk when they are obviously POWER POP!
If you haven’t heard the term before, that’s because it’s typically used for dinosaur bands from 60s-80s (the kind of stuff that people in their 40s talk about on VH1 Classic). These angry oldfags will glare and tell you that power pop is dead (of course, the specific date that it ‘died’ will usually correspond to when they personally lost interest in it). Like most things oldfags say, this is false.
The truth is that it’s far from dead. In fact, the genre is healthier than ever, and POWER POP 3.0 is the best version yet! But first, a quick step through the old days of power pop…
POWER POP 1.0 aka ‘REAL POWER POP’
When oldfags talk about ‘REAL power pop,’ they are talking about stuff like Rick Springfield, Cheap Trick, The Cars, and Smithereens- I’ll call this era power pop 1.0. That stuff is OK I guess but lettuce be reel: it sounds like shit to anyone under 50. Maybe if they re-recorded this stuff with modern technology it would be acceptable, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same story as every other genre: the bands doing it today are just better at it than the old ones were.
POWER POP 2.0
Weezer are a perfect example of power pop 2.0: super catchy, giant hooks and pop structure, but crunchy guitars that sound just a little punk. It’s easy to see how power pop 2.0′s combination of heaviness and melody with synths is the blueprint for today’s power pop and easycore bands. The influence of Weezer in particular has really come full circle, with Rivers Cuomo writing a song for power pop 3.0 band ALL TIME LOW (although the song is so bad that ATL insist it’s a ‘parody’).
There were quite a few other sweet 2.0 bands like Eve 6, Fountains Of Wayne, SR-71, and Jimmy Eat World, but plenty of people have already talked about them. I’m going to focus on what’s much more exciting to me: POWER POP 3.0!
POWER POP 3.0: NU-PUNK
In a nutshell, power pop 3.0 is what happens when you get kids who grew up on New Found Glory, Blink-182 and Green Day (ie bands who were more or less real, DIY punk bands at one point), but also loved N Sync and Britney Spears. This is the first generation of kids who were allowed to like both, and power pop 3.0 is essentially that: pop-punk meets top 40.
The other defining element of power pop 3.0 happened behind the scenes, but is probably the most significant: the rise of producers/outside songwriters. It would have been grounds for execution if a 90s pop-punk band admitted to using an outside songwriter, but it’s pretty much a given these days that Warped Tour “pop punk” (aka power pop 3.0) bands get more than a little help from producers in the songwriting/arranging dept. Try searching for your favorite 3.0 bands on ASCAP or BMI and see who’s credited with ‘co-writing’ their material!
You might as well call power pop 3.0 SAMNSLUGGOCORE, because producers Sam & Sluggo are the brains behind a zillion of the genre’s biggest bands. Their credits include Cobra Starship, Hey Monday and All Time Low as well as mnstrm pop like Katy Perry, Kelly Rowland and Mandy Moore.
My favorite Sam & Sluggo joint is STEREO SKYLINE, not to be confused with all the other Myspace power pop bands with “stereo” or “skyline” in their name (Show Me The Skyline, Stereo Shout Out, etc). When it comes to neon-fueled, Warped Tour power pop for tweens who shop at the mall, it just doesn’t get any better than this!!
http://youtu.be/SJ5vQrEF_Ic
To me, FOREVER THE SICKEST KIDS are the definitive 3.0 band. Nobody does this super-polished, candy-coated take on pop-punk better than FTSK. Whether you like them or not, put on some good headphones and listen to the layered arrangements on “Underdog Alma Mater,” it’s seriously ridiculous (listen to the 320k version on Spotify, Youtube doesn’t do it justice). And it better be good, because these guys have some of the best producers in the business behind them: Matt Mahaffey (Hellogoodbye, Pink, Beck), Matt Squire (Good Charlotte, 3OH3, Taking Back Sunday) and their secret weapon Geoff Rockwell (u jelly that I have exclusive MP3s of the demo Fight Fair did with him??). It’s really a shame they never got as popular as their label intended, because with this many big names involved I can’t imagine they’ll ever recoup.
BOYS LIKE GIRLS are another great piece of work from Sam & Sluggo (not be confused with fellow Sam & Sluggo artists FRIDAY NIGHT BOYS- I feel like they should have just combined them into one band). Also, is it just me or does Ashley Tisdale look especially jewy in this video?? No care, wood smash in a heartbeat (I’d just try to pretend the horns weren’t there).
Some might say that Disneypunk is its own genre, but I’d call them kissing cousins (like brutal death and slam). I mean, it’s all the same producers writing the material, and would anybody even notice if they gave this song to FTSK instead of Demi and Selena?? (Side note: I’m not usually one to complain about this but MY GOD THESE FAKE DRUMS)
Are you ready for me to get into some power pop 3.0 deep cuts?? Some obscure, white label test press shit that only the hardest of the hardcore 3.0 fans will know?? How about the ultimate example of the “bands with ‘stereo’ in their name” boom of 2008, STEREOS. I guess these guys won some Canadian version of Making The Band or whatever, which explains why nobody in the US has ever heard of them. Apparently they are still around, for some reason.
Speaking of deep cuts, what ever happened to MERCY MERCEDES?? Back in 2009 I thought they had a decent shot at getting big but wow, they sure didn’t. The pinnacle of their career was opening for Cash Cash on one tour, and in what can only be described as kicking a band when they’re down, they even got their Wikipedia entry deleted. Ouch :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGd_byXOkG8
Last but not least we have THE SUMMER SET, featuring my power pop waifu Jess Bowen. I’ll be honest, they only have 1.5 good songs (written by the same guy as all the Jonas Brothers hits), but that’s more than enough for me to fall in love <3 U JESS XOXO
What is your favorite POWER POP 3.0 band?? Why do people call these bands pop punk, when they aren’t the slightest bit punk??? Why do oldfags think ‘power pop is dead’ when it’s more popular than ever???? Would little girls be bummed if they found out none of these bands write their own songs?
I really don’t hear all that much of a difference in the songwriting between v1 and v3. V1 has a bit of a watered down Van Halen feel to it, while v3 has a bit more single note picking pop punk in the verses rather than playing chords, and more synth/autotune/better production of course, but it’s all just simple, hooky verses with big choruses. Non ironically think that the Rick Springfield song was the best, though there’s surely plenty of v3 songs/bands better than it/him.
the biggest difference is the production for sure, but in 3.0 there is also a lot of dancey, electronic percussion that was never in 1.0. But yeah, overall it’s still the same pop sound!
Chad Steevs loves forever the sickest kids.
They will forever be the kids that are the sickest.
where does sugarcult fit into all of this?
As somebody who is way into power pop 1.0, I found this post pretty interesting because while I certainly never dismissed any of the power pop 3.0 stuff (I’m probably a bit unusual as far as fans of this stuff goes, because I find merit in all three generations of power pop…and I’m under 25), I also never really saw much of a link between the newer stuff, and more of the stuff I listen to. This probably owes to the fact that for a lot of the older power pop (bands like Big Star, The Poppees, and The Spongetones), Beatles worship was a big part of the sound, and obviously this is not the case with 3.0 stuff at all. But, as a poster above pointed out, at the end of the day the thing that unites them all is the emphasis on hooks and choruses.
I think people probably mix power pop and pop punk up because they are both concern guitar-oriented pop music for young alternative people and both have a big, clean, sound. Sort of similar to how new wave and power pop 1.0 gets mixed up, except that early power pop never really seemed all that geared towards youngsters (so much as it often was already slightly older people singing about being young).
So what IS the diff between power pop and pop punk?
It’s pretty hair-splitting for somebody who doesn’t listen a lot of this stuff on the regular, but I’d say that power pop 3.0 is more willing to incorporate a big “fake” sound in the production, and blatant dance-pop influences than pop punk/easycore. I mean, there’s guitars on that Sterios song, but it sounds like it could’ve been made on a midi keyboard, right? Easycore has keyboards, but at the end of the day it still has the clear chugging guitars and the melodies are closer to older pop punk than pure pop music.
I think a good rule of thumb is this: If you can imagine the entire song redone without guitars at all (ie: fully electronic), and you can realistically imagine Kelly Clarkson singing over it, it’s probably closer to power pop 3.0 than pop punk.
Dude, this is A++++ knowledge youre dropping! I always dreamed of a world where i wasnt the only one who overanalyzed superficial pop music for tweens *single tear rolls down my cheek*
“it often was already slightly older people singing about being young”
lolololol brutally accurate!
But as to your original point, there’s definitely a big gap between REALLY early power pop like Big Star or whatever and Stereo Skyline, but I think that’s to be expected since they came out like 40+ years apart, right? But if you compare 80s stuff like Rick Springfield to 3.0, I think the gap is less wide?
As far as I can tell, what happened between the 70s and the early 80s was that bands doing power pop split off into two camps: One group of bands continued to do really Beatles, guitar oriented stuff (ie: The Records) and others accepted the production and trends of the time and went more new wave (ala The Romantics (“What I Like About You”), The Cars) sound. The former group was destined to be mostly ignored at the time and ultimately become the fodder of nerds such as myself 25 years later, and the latter group often had a flash-in-the-pan success with one big single or two…before eventually becoming the fodder of nerds such as myself. But it makes sense that the line is more clearly linked between the more new wave styled bands, because they basically did the same thing 30 years apart: Started with some “classic” influences, added in modern technology/production, and made music somewhere in between (and like Tr00 pop punk vs. power pop 3.0, there are people that exist, even today (amazingly), who think bands like The Knack is too “clean” and “overproduced” to be considered *real* power pop).
Does anyone else feel that we could look at power pop 3.0 as the 21st century’s version of the late 60′s early 70′s bubblegum groups (Ohio Express, The Archies, The Osmonds, etc.)?
YES, i was actually going to say, theres a strong argument for calling this nu-bubblegum or something along those lines.
I think that’s definitely a fair assessment – as I mentioned above, there’s splits here and there, but one part of understanding power pop from where it came from to where it is now starts with The Monkees and leads on through to the bubblegum stuff that was happening in the late 60s and early 70s. Also, while power pop was already up and going by the early 70s, bubblegum was a concurrent trend, and there was some cross influences going on that still resonate to these days.
Check out the song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” by The Rubinoos, an early 70s (pre punk) power pop band with strong bubblegum influence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1PaOziQrzc
Now compare it with Avril Lavigne’s (who is closer to power pop 3.0 than pop punk) “Girlfriend”. Especially note the chorus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg59q4puhmg
No coincidence here – there’s a clear link between the the sound and aesthetic of bubblegum, early power pop, and modern power pop. Avril is the perfect example of how a power pop act nods to the past (her “punk influence”, while basically adopting a power pop sound, produced through the same avenues that used to pump out bubblegum a few decades back.
*Awed silence*
Serious Music Theory up in here
I’m unconvinced this IS a genre. So far I’ve gathered this:
v 1.0 = Beatles and Beach Boys copycats w/ more guitar distortion
v 2.0 = A more melodic version of new wave
v 3.0 = a poppier version of pop punk
Those are all just very slight variations on established genres. What are the DEFINITIVE elements that make it both ‘power’ and ‘pop’? Even wikipedia just gives a long version of what I said above. Is the only requisite to being a power pop band that you SAY you’re a power pop band?
If you cant tell the difference between Green Day and Stereo Skyline, i dont know how to make it more clear?
The most obvious difference, i guess, is that these bands have absolutely nothing to do with punk. Green Day used to play with power violence bands at basement shows. Make sense?
Well, power pop is an inherently derivative subgenre of music, but subgenres are often more defined by the amount of people who show up to form bands rather than how original the sound is. You could say that pop punk isn’t really a subgenre either because in different variations, pop punk bands mostly rip some combination of The Ramones, NOFX, The Descendents, Blink 182 and/or New Found Glory. However, enough bands exist who to some extent rip-off the above bands, and thus pop punk (or in the case of NFG, easycore) exists. The same goes for power pop, except the influences and presentation are obviously different than with pop punk. I can certainly understand how you don’t really see enough distinctive qualities to consider power pop its own subgenre though, because unless one makes it a point recognizing the various subtle differences between power pop, pop punk, AND other kinds of power pop in of themselves, it’s easy to view all of this stuff as simply being pop rock.
So this is what the tr00 pop punk kids are trying to defend pop punk from: Powerpop! That, easycore, self-confidence, and anything fun lol
I had no idea that powerpop existed before 2006, but its funny that old people get angry that their pop rock is more tr00 than kids these days’ pop rock. The more you know!
Fountains of Wayne is non-ironically one of my favorite bands ever, and I get a lot of hate for that.
FTSK is my favorite 3.0 band, but haven’t listened to anything after Udnerdog really. If everything is going tr00 will we be seeing popular scene bands getting more jangly and Beatle-esque? There are still tons of 2.0 bands touring small clubs and playing International Pop Overthrow every year, definitely behind the times.
Dude, that self-titled Fountains Of Wayne album is great! I haven’t heard that much by them outside of that (besides “Stacy’s Mom”), but I’m pretty stoked on seeing them in February..
Interstate Managers > Self-Titled > Utopia Parkway > Out of State Plates
They really are more of a singles band than an album band tho, whatever they release has a handful of jams and some filler. Should be a great live show tho, jealous.
lol Stereos. they won Disband on MuchMusic(Canada’s VH1). The same show Abandon All Ships won as well.
Ha! I had no idea AAS were a tv show band, thats amazing
if you haven’t watched the episode with Stereos, you really should as it’s super lulzy:
http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/video-season1.aspx?eid=28761
one of the hosts (who usually hosts Much More Music, a channel of pop music for olds) gets all oldfag and says “it [Stereos] is like punk rock Jonas Brothers and I fucking hate it”
the show is also notable for having Greig Nori of TREBLE CHARGER fame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZqCwEgOv1k
brb, frosting and spiking my hair then acting zany in a music video
the whole show is lulzy
The whole country is lulzy
I never really knew much about current powerpop beyond FTSK/All Time Low/Summer Set, but MY GOD THAT BOYS LIKE GIRLS SONG. Inhumanly catchy and so obviously like 90% ripped off from something else, love it.
Is Demi Lovato the most smashable Disney girl ever or of all time?
Also lolling super hard that The Summer Set’s lyrics are way more alpha than like the entirety of tr00 pop-punk!
Backed! Mirin’ their use of the metaphor “Love = being drunk”
And Demi Lovato….
would (blank) just to (blank) her (blank).
Sarge, did Jess Bowen’s facial expression at the end of that clip make your dick explode?
Not to mention she smashed that blond bish…. IS JESS BOWEN ALPHA?
Entertaining and Informative, I love these kinds of posts!!
This music is inhumanly perfect. Now I now the kinda stuff to play for my lady or other normal people during road trips that wont make me vomit or isn’t the pig squeals I usually listen to that freak people out.
Filed under: White Awesomeness
“Filed under: White Awesomeness”
bingo! power-pop is white as fuck, but in the best way possible!
every avenue, the cab, a rocket from the moon, the academy is are my favorite
i’m sure some newer awesome bands are around, we need someone to keep us updated on pwrpop 3.5
1st album by sing it loud/every avenue/the maine were sweet too
as for the newer bands we are the in crowd seems ok, im doing serious research right now (via similar artists page on last.fm)
is motion city soundtrack power pop 2.0 ?
Its hard to know where MCS fits isnt it?? Great band tho, been meaning to do a post on them
yo sarge, please do that would be gr8!
MCS is like power pop 2.0 for total fuck-ups. Love those dudes.
Never heard of these guys, but I’m really digging ‘em.
They seem like they might need a hug, though.
Definitely my favorite newer band with this style, and they have enough simple pop songs for me to forget that dude probably needs a lot of counseling.
I feel like so a No Fun Club douchebag… I try to just have fun and DGAF, but even when I don’t care about how cool and metal I look I still really, really cannot stand this shit at all. Sorry :c
Oh well, I guess I can chill like a non-NFC alpha bro with Emmure and ADTR’s classic song “DISRESPECT YOUR SURROUNDINGS”. Dem breakdowns!
Your excessively strong, unsolicited negative opinion has been noted
;_;
Don’t misunderstand though, the post was as informative and fun as they always are! I’m honestly sorry I can’t be positive towards this music. Perhaps it would help if they added some gang shouts and ignorant breakdowns. I mean, easycore with production values like these? Imagine that!
You can be positive about music without liking it. It’s been said before, but the classic fall-back line is something in the ballpark of “it’s not really my thing, but it’s cool if other people are into it”. It’s clear where you are coming from, and comes off a lot more cool/reasonably than “I cannot stand this shit”, which, let’s face it – is probably an untrue statement, anyway: Your ears are not bleeding, and I hope to God your day is not entirely ruined because you heard a couple YouTube clips of songs you don’t like. Not trying to lecture you brah, just trying to help, because I was once totally saying the same sorts of things myself!
Sloan is still better than every band listed.
A wild oldfag appears
um , ok.
Sorry, its not so much about Sloane (good band), its more about the “band x that i like is better than bands y and z that you like”
Well, I guess you could say that there is also powerpop 1.5 : current bands who want to sound like obscure 80′s powerpop bands (ala Shivvers, Milk & Cookies etc.)
This guy is a good example : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq4xTyn1XFg
I feel really beta even knowing about this, but I have an undying love for all those killed-by-death era punk and power pop bands.
I know the feel, brah. I’m almost embarrassed to reveal my excessive fandom/pathetically large amount of useless information I know about this stuff (and somewhat KBD as well, though I’ve been spared outting myself there until somebody posts about The Frantix or S’Nots or something).
Man, i feel like i dodged a bullet by never getting into the whole KBD scene… Arent there like 50 of those comps or something?! Thats a rabbithole i dont need to go down haha
A WILD NERD APPEARS!
Well, the first four of those comps were all assembled by the same guy, and given that they were made in the late 80s/very early 90s (ie: before “American Hardcore” and music blogs made it easy to find out about whatever obscure weirdo punk was out there), and if you are into late 70s punk and very early hardcore, many people (including myself) would consider those very high quality comps. The problem is that after those original four, people started using the “Killed By Death” title whenever they wanted to put out some bootleg compilation of rightfully ignored mediocre punk from the 70s – 80s, so before long “Killed By Death” became a tag synonymous with these bands that record collector omega nerds seemed to drool over more so because they were obscure than because they were actually good or at least interesting. And don’t even get me started on new bands who call themselves “Killed By Death”…it’s hard picking a good candidate for the lowest common denominator in punk because there’s so many lows to choose from, but KBD punk is definitely one of the most unfortunate.
According to LastFM, Pointed Sticks and the Modernettes are in my top10 most played artists ever. feelsbadman.jpg
Oh how I love me some Pointed Sticks! And “Barbra” is beyond perfect.
It’s okay, I’ve been semi-regularly playing Pointed Sticks’ “Perfect Youth” since I found it at a used music store two and a half years ago. Canada had it going on, apparently! Do you like The Young Canadians, too?
Of course! I actually have a “canada” itunes playlist with my favourites KBD and powerpop canadian songs. Includes Pointed Sticks, Modernettes, Bureaucrats, Active Dogs, Red Squares (man, these guys were so good), Pink Steel (discovered them only recently) etc.
And don’t even get me started on the canadian 60′s ga(y)rage scene.
(I’m not even canadian btw)
“IMO the most important part of being a REAL music fan is knowing how to label a band with the proper genre”
that was funny as shit. Is it weird that i think, as far as perfectly crafted pop goes, Buddy Holly was the best song of the 90′s kinda the same way Hey Ya was the best song of the 00′s?
Always debatable, but that sounds perfectly accurate.
sick post! i’ve listened to a lot of power-pop 1.0 and 2.0 and thought you were just trolling with power-pop 3.0. listened to the stereo skyline track and was shocked by how much continuity there is! *the more you know*
this probably would’ve hurt the credibility of your argument, but the jonas brothers have some sick power-pop 3.0 steez! “paranoid” is my jam.
No dude, john fields (who writes a lot of jo bros songs) is one of the biggest 3.0 producers too. Disneypunk is the best!!
Wow…
DEFEND POWER-POP!!
I liked that ‘Tongue Tied’ song a lot better when Cat from Red Dwarf sang it.
i rep 1.0 hard…..any love for the undertones here? or the boys?
I LOVE The Undertones and The Boys! I kinda view the British power pop stuff as a different ballpark than the American stuff (it’s a bit punkier, and has some slightly different influences than the US stuff (ie: pub rock)), but there’s tons of good music in there too. I think The Records’ “Starry Eyes” is one of the best songs ever written, imho. I recently found out about this band, Tours, who you may like if you dig The Undertones. They were one of those bands that never got passed releasing a few singles, but a comp recently came out called “Album Of The Year (That Never Was)” collecting together all of their released and unreleased late 70s material.
Also, the UK had the whole Mods movement, which is the origin of many good punk-ish powerpop records (spinning The Chords at the moment, so so good! )
I don’t know where The Biters fit on the this power pop spectrum ( I must be listening to the wrong kind of power pop) but they are the best power pop band since The Exploding Hearts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-j6udEyUG8
Yeah, the Exploding Hearts were really good, it’s sad what happened :(
The Biters were formerly the Poison Arrows, so you bet they can write catchy songs!
Mercy Mercedes were so huge around here at one point (I live in NC, where they’re from). Those dudes slept on my floor after a show one night because they didn’t want to drive the 3 hours back at 2 am. Really chill guys, was also quite surprised they didn’t get huge.
Old Weezer is so good that whenever I think about how shitty they got it makes me want to cry. I’ll stick to 2.0, if that’s cool. I’m 20 going on 21, so the 2.0 is closer to my generation anyways via only being able to enjoy this kind of thing retrospectively.
Yeah 3.0 probably hits too close to home for you to let yourself accept that its good. It takes most people until their late 20s to let go and accept change. You are on track, dont worry!
New Weezer makes me sad because of how good they were. Blue and Green albums are classics, and I always like Green a little more cause its pretty much straight power pop the entire time. I guess Pinkerton is good too if you’re really sad and have no self-confidence.
Wait. Fight fair demos? So jelly.
An oldfag I might be, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a better power pop album in the last decade than Sloan’s Action Pact. Srsly, take my advice and try not singing along. Every song is catchy as hell. Great leads, soaring 3 part harmonies.
Just wanted to say thank you for making me google this band. Im listening to Fade Away and my god, its beautiful. :”)
Where does Good Charlotte fit? They’ve always confused me. Are they like version 2.1 or 2.5 or something?
i love powerpop 3.0
some of my favs of the genre are unknown though (aside from the almighty FTSK)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1D0yniwy38&w=420&h=315
I’ve never quite warmed to modern power pop. Don’t know why; on paper they’re doing nothing but stuff I like, and I can’t point to anything any of these bands are doing wrong, but somehow there’s something missing that I can’t put my finger on.
I feel the same way about Blink 182.
It’s possible I’m just incurably old.
Loving a lot of the stuff in the comments; Never heard of Sloane, Motion City Soundtrack or The Summer Highlight before, and I’m really digging them. Thanks guys!
great great post here! Much of this stuff was new to me, but man, I cannot stop banging The Summer Set right here!!
Also; A++++ material from Bronson in the comments! Such strong ultra nerdy music knowledge and really interesting facts, with absolutely zero IMN-vibes or negativity? BACKED. THE. FUCK. HARD.
Thanks dude! It sounds cheesy, but it’s really awesome when I read this website, find a post that happens to be exceptionally pertinent to my interests, and then find out that I’m not the only one on here who enjoys this music (or at the very least finds it interesting to read about). My intent is hopefully to amuses and inform while showing that you don’t have to be a nitpicker or an arrogant jerk to be a music nerd, so thanks for picking up on that!
*brofist*
+1. I was nervous about posting this since there are so many power pop snobs (lol) and I didn’t feel like dealing with a bunch of “FTSK IS FOR BABIES AND FAGORTS ONLY CHEAP TRICK IS REAL!!!!1″
Big lols @ any balding, pony-tailed fatso trying to justify the objective validity/superiority of a band with an album called “Dream Police”…that features members of the said band dressed as literal dream police on the album cover.
I feel like Cartel deserves some mention in this article? Chroma was and the self-titled where bad ass pop albums. Not quite as bubblegum as the rest of the stuff featured here, but I like it nonetheless.
Honestly = Certified Power Pop Jam of whatever year it came out.
And then Stuff you will hate did a post about power pop, and my life was complete
But anyway, i kinda wish all these 3.0 bands had louder/more guitar, but other than that theyre pretty good. Its great to hear new power pop stuff
does armor for sleep or boys night out filter into this category (maybe v. 2.5?) because HUGE FAN of both.
I like the stuff on here about the newer bands -but I have a few issues: “Easycore” is not pop punk. Pop punk came from the 70′s stuff like the buzzcocks., the Undertones etc. and the 80′s scene with Mr. T Experience and Screeching Weasel all paving the way for Green Day and Blink to explode. Easy Core is a splinter genre where all the bands sound like New Found Glory who first started mixing that hardcore rhythm in with pop punk lyrics. When one band(nfg) did it, it was just a take on pop punk and was kinda cool. when a zillion bands did it it (regrettably) became a genre. ( that I hate)
if SR-71 is a “power pop” band-then all pop punk bands are power pop bands. Listen to “she was dead” for example. That is pop fucking punk. I call this “Butch Walker Core” bands like sr-71, bowling for soup and Amercian Hi-Fi making really polished pop punk.
I could go on about the distinction between jangle pop and skinny tie power pop, or how Cheap Trick should be grouped in the pop punk side of things for the attitude they had, or how some of the best power pop ever came from 70′s “punk” bands like “the Boys” and “the Jam” -or how I call my band pop punk and power pop-because-well it’s both-but for now I’ll just stick with being happy that there is someone out there who doesn’t consider either power pop or pop punk to be bad words. And someone else who likes Disney punk( that Lindsay Lohan song on the freaky friday soundtrack was rad)
In my opinion, the equation is as simple as this: “All pop punk bands are technically power pop bands -but all power pop bands are not pop punk bands.”
oh, and you should get Kurt Bakers new record.